ConocoPhillips Warned Amazon Operations Could Kill Off Isolated Indigenous Communities

ConocoPhillips senior management came under increasing pressure today at the Houston-based oil major’s annual shareholder meeting as environmental and human rights campaigners warned that its Peru plans could lead to the extinction of some of the Amazon basin’s last surviving indigenous groups still living in isolation.

ConocoPhillips’ current Amazon holdings, including interests in six concessions totaling 12 million acres in Peru, are larger than any other company’s. Two concessions, known as “block 39” (which ConocoPhillips holds jointly with Spain’s Repsol) and “blocks 104” overlap the proposed Napo Tigre Territorial Reserve, being set up specifically to protect four isolated indigenous groups ¬— the Abijiras, Taromenane, Arabela and Pananujuri. Block 104 also intrudes on the existing Pucacuro Reserve Zone.

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